S IGNA L T R IBU N E Serving Bixby Knolls, California Heights, Los Cerritos, Wrigley and Signal Hill VOL. XXXIX NO. 7
Your Weekly Community Newspaper
February 10, 2017
How big is too big?
Surveying the needs of the community Residents expressed desire for more accessibility at needs-assessment meeting. Denny Cristales
LB Planning Commission to take another look at mansionization issue next week.
Editorial Assistant
CJ Dablo Staff Writer
Next week, the Long Beach Planning Commission will take another look at what makes a “McMansion,” an oversized home that can overshadow its smaller neighbors, but they won’t have much time to mull it over. Time is running out on a controversial moratorium that affects the exclusive feel in the areas of the Los Cerritos and Virginia Country Club neighborhoods in Long Beach. In 2015 the city council approved that moratorium to limit new home building and additions that would exceed 1,500 square feet in order to address local residents’ concerns over mega-sized homes that were being constructed. The Planning Commission heard from residents on both sides of the issue on Feb. 2 but requested that they continue to address the issue at next week’s Planning Commission meeting on Feb. 16. The staff would be expected to work with the residents on the issue of home size. Since the moratorium is due to expire on March 31, city staff, residents and ultimately the city council don’t have much time to continue to wade through the details of new development standards that were meant to address the so-called “mansionization” effect. At the city’s Planning Commission meeting last week, city staff presented five recommendations to change the development standards unique to the zone designated as “R-1-L” located in the Los Cerritos and Virginia Country Club neighborhoods. The recommendations covered frontyard setback, second-story side setback, corner-lot setback, lot mergers and floor-area ratios.
Right now, the minimum standard for the frontyard setback is at 20 feet. The staff of the Planning Bureau recommended that it be changed to a 25foot minimum.
Front-yard setback This setback deals with the minimum required distance from the front of the property line of the home to the nearest exterior wall of its building.
Second-story side setback This requirement deals with the distance between the exterior wall of a building and the side property line. Right now, two-story homes that
Courtesy City of LB
Only the zones marked “R-1-L” in the Los Cerritos/Virginia Country Club neighborhoods in Long Beach are affected by a moratorium on new home building and additions that would exceed 1,500 square feet. The Long Beach City Council approved the moratorium in 2015 in response to concerns expressed by residents over “mansionization.” Some residents are hoping to influence what the Planning Commission ultimately recommends for residential development standards. The moratorium is set to expire on March 31.
are 25 feet high could be built with a side setback of 12 feet, according to a Planning Bureau staff report. This current standard presented worries of privacy between neighbors as well as concerns that the larger homes would cut off light and air to smaller homes that are adjacent to them. The staff made specific recommendations for homes on lot sizes that exceed 60
feet in width. Currently the two-story homes have a minimum setback of 6 feet for that upper story, but according to the presentation by the Planning Bureau staff, if the lot exceeds that 60-foot width, the new standard would be “15 percent of lot width or 10 feet, whichever is greater.” see ZONING page 15
People have often been asked, “Where will you be 10 years from now?” A difficult question to answer for some, but does the response get any easier when the inquiry is instead directed at an entire city? The Signal Hill Community Services Department did indeed ask that question when it hosted a needs-assessment community meeting on Wednesday at the Signal Hill Library to gather ideas of what recreational services residents feel they may need in the future. The meeting featured mostly seniors 60 and up, indicated by a show of hands. The Community Services Department has been gathering input from residents over the last few months for an assessment outline that will be presented to the Signal Hill City Council sometime in May or June, according to Aly Mancini, director of community services in Signal Hill, who was also present to hear local opinions. Mancini said the event is mostly about presenting what’s important to residents to the Community Services Department and the city council. “We’re not implementation– we’re concept,” she added. City officials have also used telephone surveys to garner data from residents. Richard A. Fisher, president of landscape firm Richard Fisher Associates (RFA), moderated the event on Wednesday with Sue Leto, recreation specialist with RFA. Fisher told residents that these types of meetings are important because needs change over time. “What is happening in your life today may be different compared to eight or 10 years ago,” he said, also adding an example from his own life in which he and his wife always joked about their potential needs when they get older. The stair lift machine his wife now uses is an indication that the future is always rapidly approaching, see ASSESSMENT page 7
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